A telephone call followed by lunch with a stranger can save the average college graduate from getting locked into years working for the wrong company, doing the wrong job, according to Bob Stauth, a retired retail executive who's spent the last seven years mentoring W. P. Carey MBA students.

"If you're offered an opening in accounting with a good employer, don't just say 'I'll take it,'" cautioned Stauth, 61, who worked his way from teenage bag-boy to chief executive officer at Fleming Foods. "Instead, call the company switchboard and say, 'I will buy the lunch of anyone who's been an accountant here for five years -- please help me make this happen. I'm not asking for a job; I just want to find out what it's like to work as an accountant.'"

It's a forward strategy, but one that usually pays off if you can steel yourself to make the call and pursue a face-to-face, Stauth said. Think it won't work? Think again. People often enjoy the combination of offering advice to younger counterparts while venting to a harmless outsider, he explains, and will offer priceless nuggets of information that rarely emerge during the traditional interviewing process. The face-to-face reverse interview provides a reality check for students who are basing critical life choices on assumptions about a particular job, company or industry.

For instance, working as a junior accountant with Company A, complete with a respectable paycheck and nicely decorated office, may seem like a good fit initially. But an hour with a company insider could give you a peek behind the curtain at a 60-hour work week, 10-year-old computers and a corporate culture that discourages employee input.

You also might realize that while a particular firm is a great place to work, you aren't a good fit with accounting. The daily tasks related to this role turn out to be different from what you expected, and distinctly unappealing. Now is the time to re-focus and if necessary, re-train. As Stauth explained, "you are always in charge of Me Inc., and can change goals anytime. Sometimes success is a matter of readjusting, rather than feeling like a failure."

Of course, what you learn during lunch could be positive, and lead to an employer/employee match that lasts many productive years. But if not, keep looking, because getting stuck in an unproductive match for even four or five years can seriously handicap crucial career momentum, he said.

Job one: find your passion  

Stauth didn't need to go the lunch route to know that his first job was a tight, right fit. When he was just 14 years old, a neighborhood grocer called his mother to ask if Stauth wanted to work a few hours a week bagging groceries. "I was intrigued by all the different products on shelf, and how they were marketed -- why something was on the fourth shelf instead of the third shelf. Every aspect of the grocery business was mesmerizing to me," he recalled.

By the time he graduated from college and joined Fleming, Stauth had seven years experience in grocery retailing and "knew this was exactly where I belonged. That early knowledge of what I wanted to do was irreplaceable, and had the impact of a 15-year head start." Year by year, Stauth maintained that head start over his peer group; it's partly why he was able to retire, a wealthy man, by age 53.

Stauth told this year's W. P. Carey MBA graduating class their first real job is figuring out -- if they already hadn't -- what would make them eager to jump out of bed every morning. "You must have a passion for what you do professionally. That means a heartfelt connection with what you do. Find your passion as early as you can," he urged.

At the graduation ceremony, Stauth became the first recipient of the Distinguished Achievement Award from the W. P. Carey School of Business, where he has volunteered his services to MBA students since retiring from Fleming in 1998. Stauth's work with the students led to an innovative "two-on-one" mentoring program called "The Executive Is In." Students go online to schedule a Wednesday appointment, briefly stating their question or dilemma, then meet with the two executive mentors best suited to help out.

Stauth told the new grads the same thing he and fellow "The Executive Is In" mentors tell the students who ask for help: there is no substitute for consistency, day in, day out, year after year, when it comes to meeting career goals. But his central message, woven throughout his advice to grads, was that accomplishments result when you apply that passion, consistently, with "a very high level of integrity."

Tending the ethical boundary

His message is timely. Former top Enron executives Kenneth Lay (facing charges of conspiracy, false statements and securities and bank fraud) and Jeffrey Skilling (facing charges of conspiracy, money laundering, insider trading and securities fraud), currently await a verdict from a Houston, Texas, jury. And a Manhattan prosecutor said former Tyco International CEO Dennis Kozlowski treated the company like a $600 million "personal piggy bank." Kozlowski was convicted for grand larceny, conspiracy, falsifying business records and violating general business law in June 2005.

Stauth said those caught with both hands in the corporate cookie jar probably didn't wake up one day and suddenly decide to start stealing from shareholders. On-the-job ethics are like a dike you've got to patrol daily for leaks, he said, because one tiny trickle will inevitably grow into a gusher.

"These senior executives are not unethical people who got to the top. In fact, they probably were the opposite. From the time of their college graduation, they were likely the most ethical of their peers, until they finally reached the level where they had to deal with unrealistic expectations from Wall Street regarding sales and earnings growth," he explained.

Top execs who feel the pressure to pony up higher and higher profits year after year begin setting unrealistic goals. "They cheat one time to make one quarter's earnings, because so much is at stake for them and their team. But next quarter, they cross the line again, so that $70,000 overstatement becomes $150,000, and eventually it's $1.2 million, and you can't find the line anymore," Stauth continued.

Sadly, it's not just the big boss who goes bad in this scenario. Earnings pressure filters down to middle management and even front-line personnel like sales staff. This trickle-down effect means some new grads, despite their shiny diplomas and best intentions, can become complicit even indirectly, by basing future projections on reports they suspect are inaccurate or simply keeping quiet about shady business practices. From there, he warned, it could be just a matter of time before they're padding their quarterly results.

Stauth pointed to surveys of incoming students administered each year by Marianne Jennings, a professor of legal and ethical studies the W. P. Carey School. Jennings asks students if they have established ethical boundaries for themselves -- lines they would not cross, even to be successful in business. On average, about 86 percent respond that they are unsure of their own ethical boundaries in business -- not an unusual response from new students at this point in their careers. Given that the program accepts only bachelor-degreed people with at least five years in the workplace, their uncertainty is especially telling, Stauth said.

"If that is where incoming MBA students with five years of experience are, then what hope is there for the front-line supervisor who's got a wife and three kids? He can't afford to leave his job, and his manager is saying, 'we're not leaving here tonight until you create the numbers we need,'" he added. "What is this person to do? Where is his hope?"

But there is hope, because each person has the ability to say no, Stauth stressed. If and when you're approached by a peer or higher-up asking you to sign a blank voucher, plump up weekly sales by 10 percent or hide a slush fund from auditors, respond by explicitly clarifying their request.

"Say, 'are you asking me to cheat?' The answer will never be yes; they will talk around it, saying something like, 'we aren't asking anybody to cheat, we just need results for this quarter.' Push them to clarify it again and again, because most managers and supervisors will then back off," he said.

True, three months later, you could lose your job in a surprise "right-sizing." But if the company is that corrupt, do you really want to work there? As Stauth said: "Tell yourself that 'I am in control of Me Inc., and I don't cheat. I will find a better place.'"

While job-seeking, rather than worrying that the person who asked you to cheat may be contacted for a reference, use the incident as a "branding" strategy, he suggested. "The first question in the interview is, 'why did you leave the ABC Company?' Say, 'they told me to cheat to get quarterly numbers, I refused, and three months later was fired during a cutback. I will bust my tail to get legitimate results but I will not cheat. If that means you don't choose me for this job, that's fine, because I'll find the right place.'"

Bob Stauth's tips for a great career:

• Embrace calculated risk-taking, because nothing really meaningful ever happens without taking risks. 
• Understand that risk-taking involves investing a disproportionate amount of capital resources in one specific product or strategy.
• Savvy risk-taking entails developing two key skills: knowing if there is an exit strategy and at what point you cross the point of no return with a particular endeavor.